Scoble addresses the issue of copyright and blogs. It’s an interesting question. Know that my thoughts here are just that – my thoughts. I’m not even going to pretend to know what the heck I’m talking about.
A copyright is legal protection of a creator’s intellectual work – for example, literary works, a song, etc. It’s set forth in title 17 of the U.S. Code. I found all sorts of great information concerning Copyright Law at http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html. Under Copyright Law, the moment I publish an entry on this blog, for example, I am claiming ownership of that post and the intellectual work therein. Other bloggers enjoy the same right. The question then becomes, if I post someone else’s blog entry and then comment on that entry on this site, am I violating that person’s rights? Technically, if I do so without first seeking their permission, the answer is yes. And even if I do receive that person’s permission, I have no guarantee that they, too, have not violated someone else’s copyright – thereby putting me in violation as well.
Even just providing a link to someone else’s content may not be okay - http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/linking.html#What%20is%20a%20link. In most cases, though, simply linking to another site is not a problem unless you do it inappropriately in a way that defames or otherwise violates the rights of the content owner.
“Fair Use” comes into play and complicates the situation. In some cases, it might be okay to use someone else’s work as long as it is considered “Fair Use”. The problem with “Fair Use” is that it’s ambiguous. There’s no definition of exactly what it is and in most cases the definition of what constitutes “Fair Use” is subjective. There’s a great overview of “Fair Use” and copyrights at http://www.patents.com/weblaw.sht.
Subscribing to the Creative Commons license (http://www.creativecommons.org) as Scoble suggests, might be the answer. The problem is that unless everyone protects their content the same way, the whole thing comes crashing down. If I am to post someone else’s entry, I first have to become a legal expert to make sure it’s okay first. Always seeking the author’s permission, of course, is the safest route. Wouldn’t that limit the fluidity of the Blogsphere and overcomplicate the sharing of ideas though? I think so.
One thing is for sure – if the “Echo Chamber” that Scoble talks about in regards to blogging ever comes under fire from copyright attorneys, then we can pretty much write-off the phenomenon of blogging as we know it. The whole idea is that I can find something interesting from someone and post that and my thoughts for others to view. I don’t have the answer to this – I can only hope that my innocent reproduction of another’s thoughts (with proper credit to the author!) doesn’t put me on the wrong end of a lawsuit. J
As for the content on this site, most of it’s not worth reproducing. You all know that - you’re reading this, after all. If you want to reuse it, though, feel free to do so. Just give me the proper credit for the good stuff and blame the bad stuff on someone else…
Sebastien Lambla wants Channel9 to be two-way syndication. I don't quite understand what he's getting at. Sounds a lot like Feedster to me. Go there, and you can build a "Channel9" query, subscribe to it, and then you'll see everyone who mentions Channel9, whether it's on Channel9 itself (since nearly everything on Channel9 is an RSS feed) or on your own blog, or even in my comment area here, since that's an RSS feed too.
And nothing is stopping you from building your own aggregator. For instance, look at Kunal's "MagicFolder" (AKA OutlookMT) -- that lets me aggregate the feeds I read into a single point (by dragging and dropping NewsGator items into a folder they get automatically posted to my experimental aggregated blog).
There is a downside to this aggregation, though. What about copyright law? That law says that anything I create is mine and I have legal control over it.
But, look at my experimental aggregation blog. I'm pretty sure I'm breaking at least the spirit of the copyright law, if not the letter of the law itself. I'm reposting people's creative works without their permission.
We need a new kind of "fair use" law which will let people like me build new kinds of aggregated services and blogs. How do we go about doing that? Creative Commons?
By the way, I'm cool with anyone reusing my content in whatever way they want (as long as it's on my blog -- if it's over on Channel9 Microsoft owns that content so gotta be more careful with that stuff).
If you're thinking of reusing Channel9 content on your own sites, just ask (by the way, we're answering the email sent to channel9@microsoft.com -- all that email is sent to our entire team). We'll figure out what we can and can't do as we go along.
Related...
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]